Breaking the Walls
by Dax's10thHost
Summary: It's been two weeks, and it's time to face the demons in the air.
1. Begin

**Disclaimer:** I do not own nor claim to own any of the following characters, places, or events.

**Author's Note:** Three-shot, written for VAMB's Secret Summer 2012. Phamy requested a Janeway/B'Elanna close friendship piece with "lots of Angst." This, the result, is set in the weeks following season five's "Nothing Human." Profuse thanks goes out to **Bones Bird** for her impromptu beta-work, and also for pitching me the title. You're a life-saver!

* * *

Breaking the Walls  
by Dax's10thHost

"_What_ do you think you're doing?"

The doors to his office seemed to explode as B'Elanna rocketed into the room, a mass of flaming cheeks and flashing teeth. Chakotay merely glanced up at her outburst and set aside the duty roster.

"I think I missed something." He folded his hands on the desk. "Care to fill me in?"

"_This_," B'Elanna snarled, and thrust a padd into his face. Chakotay stared down his nose at the orange print.

"The crew assignments for tomorrow's mission."

"_Yes_, the crew assignments for tomorrow's mission!" B'Elanna snapped, and hurled the padd across the room.

"Is there a problem, Lieutenant?"

"Don't you lieutenant me, Chakotay! Don't you dare!"

"I asked if you had a problem, _lieutenant_, and if you don't have an answer for me, then you can leave this office. Immediately. I don't have time for tantrums."

B'Elanna's jaw dropped. "Problem? _Prob_lem? That's all you think this is? A _problem_? You listen to me, Chakotay." She crouched over his desk and shook her fist. "I am way past problem status on this. You _assigned_ me to a mission with her, and I won't have it. Not after what she did to me."

"She saved your _life_, B'Elanna. I'd think you'd at least be a little grateful for that."

"No, she overruled my wishes, that's what she did, and I don't appreciate being stomped on, Chakotay. She had no right – "

"She had every right!"

B'Elanna reared back. "How?"

"She's the Captain."

"Oh, and I suppose if she wanted to maroon us all on an airless asteroid, that would be fine, too. Because she's the _Captain_," B'Elanna spat.

"That's enough!"

"I can't believe you're defending her!"

"I'm her first officer. What do you _expect_ me to do?"

"I expect you to be my friend!"

"I am your friend, B'Elanna. But I'm also your commanding officer, and you're going on that mission tomorrow whether you like it or not." He held her glare. "Now, I suggest you get yourself together and walk out of here acting your age, or you can spend a night in the brig."

"But – "

"I said that's enough! Dismissed. And pick up that padd on your way out."

B'Elanna stood frozen, lips parted and eyes wide above her flushed cheeks. Chakotay watched her for a steady moment, then severed the contact and returned to the week's duty roster. He didn't look up when B'Elanna stirred, stomped over to the padd, and swept out of the room. Nor did he look up after the doors had closed behind her.

As far as he was concerned, this wasn't his problem anymore; it was B'Elanna's.

And the Captain's.

. . .

Chakotay breezed into the shuttlebay, lips pursed and head cocked to one side. Despite the simplicity of the survey planned, the room echoed with activity, seeming to swell with the importance of the senior officers occupying it.

Tom, the pilot for the morning's survey mission, emerged from the _Delta Flyer_'s belly with an empty cargo container slung atop his shoulder, alternately singing and whistling something about islands and three hour tours as he strolled across the bay. His hair was its typical tousled sandy brown, but his uniform was crisp, clean, and wholly befitting an officer of his caliber.

B'Elanna, still a fury, swept past her humming beau with a scowl stamped upon her features. Her short legs churned up a sea of anger, leaving a crackling energy in her wake and causing Chakotay to exchange looks and shrugged shoulders with Tom.

The Captain stood at an auxiliary console, checking and double-checking the specs for the anomalous readings in a nearby asteroid field, otherwise known as the target for the survey mission. At the sound of the bay doors and Chakotay's answering footsteps, Janeway swung around. Seeing him, her lips parted to demand why he was here and not on the bridge as she'd assigned. Before she could, though, Tom tossed the cargo container aside with a clatter and cleared his throat.

"All set?" he asked, looking first to Janeway and then to the stony-faced B'Elanna who'd anchored herself behind him.

"Not quite," Chakotay answered. "Give us a moment?"

"Sure," he said, and dragged B'Elanna into the _Flyer_.

Kathryn turned to him. "Why are you here, Chakotay? You're supposed to be – "

"On the bridge. Yes. I know. But Tuvok can handle things for a few minutes. I needed to talk to you for a few minutes."

"Now is not the best of times, Chakotay. If we don't launch soon, we'll miss our window for charting the anomaly."

"Be careful out there."

She softened. "You know this isn't a dangerous mission. And with Tom at the helm – "

"I'm not talking about safety, Kathryn. I'm talking about B'Elanna."

Janeway's eyes sharpened to flint. "I'm not the one who needs to be careful on that matter."

"Five years ago, you made me your first officer, which means it's my responsibility to look out for your safety; that's all I'm doing here. I can't promise B'Elanna's best behavior out there."

"Well, she'd better behave herself, or she's going to have some _severe_ consequences when we return."

"Stop treating her like an officer for just one second, Kathryn, and see her for who she really is! For B'Elanna!"

"_B'Elanna_ is my officer."

"Not in this matter, she isn't. She's a person. You crossed a line with her last week, and that demands some answers."

"Are you questioning my captaincy, Commander?"

"I don't know. Am I?"

"Commander…" Kathryn's voice was dangerously gritty.

He matched her glare. "She's got some hard questions for you, Kathryn, and I'm not going to keep her from asking them. Not this time."

Tom poked his head out the _Flyer_'sdoor. "Captain? You ready?"

Janeway flicked her eyes to the pilot's luminous blue ones, lips thinning to a line. "Coming, Tom."

The pilot nodded and ducked back into his ship. Chakotay's shoulders loosened.

Kathryn turned back to him, eyes icy like steel in an Andorian winter. "You talked about crossing lines, Commander? I'm not the only one who needs to guard my actions. Or my tongue."

He merely looked at her, then watched as she turned and boarded the shuttle. Despite the clenched muscles in his gut, he knew he'd done the right thing. Not even captains should go unquestioned sometimes.

. . .

The air inside the _Flyer_ was frosty – that's the only way Tom could describe it. Frosty, like the window panes in winter, the winter his father had refused to give him flying lessons for Christmas because he'd made a B in algebra class. One lousy B.

Bee.

Other than the perfunctory launch answers such as "check… check… check…," she hadn't said anything, and neither had the Captain. In fact, no one had said a word since the final "check" had sunk into the stale walls.

Tom shivered. Funny, how cold could make such a confined space seem so… vast.

Another chilly minute passed before he could bear it no longer. "Approaching the anomaly," he announced, and shifted a few levers to the left. Then some to the right. Finally, a flick of the switch in the middle. Just a few more minutes…

"I'm not reading anything, Tom. B'Elanna, is this part of the anomaly's quirks?"

"I don't know. That's Seven's specialty."

"B'Elanna!" Tom barked, and felt her eyes boring into his neck.

"Sorry," she mumbled. _But not really._ And they all knew it. "From what Seven told me and based on the readouts Harry took early this morning/late last night, it's possible that the fluctuations could be messing with our sensors. Then again, I'm not sure, and can't be without getting closer."

"Wait." Tom's neck prickled under Janeway's sudden suspicion. "Tom – if our sensors can't detect the anomaly, then how did you know we were approaching it?"

Not a moment too soon. Tom flipped the switch, waited for the inertial dampers to arrest the repercussions of a sudden stop, and stood. "I think that's my cue to leave, ma'am," he said. Her eyes narrowed, but he didn't care. Right now, he was pissed at both of them.

"What do you think you're doing, Lieutenant?" Janeway ground out, moving to block the door to the cargo hold.

"Me? Oh, I'm just heading back for a snack. Forgot to eat breakfast this morning and I'm awful hungry. You don't mind, do you?"

"Lieutenant Paris," she said, enunciating as if to slice. "Take your station. I have not dismissed you."

"Sorry, ma'am, I can't do that. I'm under strict orders to keep up my energy, you see, and if I don't eat breakfast, I'm afraid I don't perform well. I might even be impaired enough to crash us into a nonexistent asteroid."

"Tom…"

"I'm sorry, B'Elanna. But we had to do it."

"Do _what_?" The backlash in her voice was enough to make his skin tingle. Again.

"Excuse me, Captain. I'm going to leave you two ladies to each other now. I'll come back up when the screaming's done. Oh, and don't bother trying to unlock the _Flyer_'s controls. Even you can't crack this one, B'Elanna. It'll only respond to my code, my voice, and my fingers. Perks of being the designer."

And with that he shouldered past Janeway, knowing she'd make him pay for it later, and locked himself in the cargo hold.

* * *

To be Continued


	2. Crescendo

Silence reigned in the _Flyer_'s cramped confines, but it was no longer frosty or deliberate. Instead, it was stunned. Stunned and unwelcome.

"Do you know anything about this?" Janeway finally asked, turning cautious eyes on B'Elanna.

The engineer's lips parted. "Do _I_ – This is ridiculous."

"Yes it is, and I'd like to know why we're sitting here like ducks in a pond."

B'Elanna yanked her toolkit from under her seat and stood. "Correction. _You're_ a sitting duck. _I'm_ trying to circumvent my idiot boyfriend's latest hairbrained idea."

"You heard what he said. You can't – "

"You know what? I'm not interested in what _he said_. I'm trying to get us out of this mess."

"You're awfully bitter, B'Elanna."

"And you're a genius. Ex_cuse_ me." She shoved past the older woman, not even trying to avoid the collision of shoulders.

Janeway watched her go, eyebrows arched and hands on hips. "That was uncalled for."

"Really? Funny how things are only uncalled for when others utter them. Whereas you" she laughed humorlessly "– you can just get away with just about anything you want. Because you're the _Captain_."

"Is that what this is about, B'Elanna? My saving your _life_?"

"You overrode my wishes," B'Elanna countered, flinging her hyperspanner aside. "And as I told Chakotay yesterday morning when he assigned me to this blasted mission with you, I don't take kindly to being stomped upon. Especially by Starfleet."

"You're Starfleet, too, B'Elanna."

"No, I'm an engineer. Big difference."

"Bull."

"_No_, not bull," B'Elanna shouted, and shot to her feet. "I am tired of you dismissing me just because you have more pips on your collar. Magnets. Magnets, Captain Kathryn Janeway. You're turning me – a person – into a slip of metal on a collar and I'm sick of it! I'm not going to stand by and let you do it – not anymore."

"When have I turned you into a rank, B'Elanna? When?"

"Last week!"

"I did not!"

"Yes you did! You over – "

"I saved your life!" Janeway boomed.

"Oh, and I suppose now's when I grovel at your feet like you're some sort of god, right? Tell me, Captain, does it make you feel powerful to say you saved someone's life? To have rescued one person at the cost of millions?"

"He was a hologram, B'Elanna. A _projection_ of Crell Moset, nothing more."

"So if the Doctor invited holograms of Adolf Hitler and Khan Noonien Singh to our next holodeck party, you wouldn't have a problem with that?"

Janeway stiffened. "That's an entirely different matter."

"No, Captain, it isn't. It's entirely _the same_, because Crell Moset murdered millions of innocent Bajorans, and I dedicated a year of my life to making sure that people like him paid for their crimes."

"Just like I made you pay for yours?"

B'Elanna's mouth clapped shut and a net of tension dropped over her shoulders. "How _dare_ you," she whispered, eyes blazing.

Kathryn jerked her chin upward. "Tell me something, B'Elanna. Did you want to die?"

"What kind of question is that?" B'Elanna scoffed. "No one ever _wants_ to die."

"Really? Because you just said that I went against your wishes and saved your life. Which means that you wanted to die. Didn't you?"

B'Elanna was silent.

"That's it, isn't it? That's what has you all fired up." Janeway paused, as if she couldn't bear to say it. "You _wanted_ to die."

B'Elanna stared at her for a moment, then dropped away and muttered, "That's ridiculous."

Janeway's eyes glistened, eyebrows pinched with disbelief. "You didn't consider yourself valuable enough to live."

"Stop. Just – stop."

"B'Elanna…"

"_Stop_!" She cried, and slammed her fist into the bulkhead. "I won't do this. I _won't_."

"This is about the Maquis again, isn't it?" A beat. A breath. An inhalation of disbelief. "You never stopped."

Realization. Horror. Revulsion?

B'Elanna whirled to face her, tears glittering in her eyes. "I _did_ stop. I haven't run those programs in weeks. _ Weeks_! Why don't you people ever believe me?" She flung out her arms and stepped forward. "Why is it always doubt-on-B'Elanna time? Why am I so unbelievable? Why do I always fly off the handle? Why is it always 'oh, it's her temper'? Why can't you see past my ridges _for just once in your life_?"

The words hung in the air while Janeway stared, as if she were afraid to touch them, afraid to accept the responsibility of so much pain and disillusionment. B'Elanna's eyes, spread wide during her speech, watched her and then narrowed with disgust. "See? You're just like the rest."

Kathryn took a step forward. "B'Elanna, I saved your life because you are a valuable member of my crew."

"There you go again," she rolled her eyes. " 'Valuable member of this crew.' What about person, Captain? What about B'Elanna? You know, that name you just called me. What about me? Sometimes I get the feeling I'm only good for holding the ship together."

"That's not true."

"Oh really? Well why don't you prove it, then?"

"How? By letting you die the next time a Cardassian hologram tries to save your life? I'm sorry, B'Elanna, but I can't do that. You're worth too much."

"Oh. So I have a price now."

"Yes, that's right. You do have a price. Every life has a price."

"Really, Captain?" B'Elanna's voice softened, though her eyes continued to blaze. "What about the Bajorans that Moset turned into lab rats? What about their families? They never got to see them again. Was my life _worth_ all that suffering?"

"They were already dead, B'Elanna."

"Yes. And we should honor their memory, not exploit it!"

Janeway lifted her chin. "What about Moset's results? They ultimately saved thousands – even millions – of lives."

"At the expense – "

"Yes, at the expense of equal millions. And I don't like his methods any more than you do. But should we let the Bajorans' sacrifices go in vain?"

"They didn't have a _choice_!"

Silence. Ringing. Burgeoned.

Profound.

Finally – "No. They didn't."

B'Elanna's eyebrows knit. "You're agreeing with me?"

"…Yes."

"You're actually admitting you were wrong?" B'Elanna's jaw dropped.

Janeway sank into her chair. "No. Not entirely. But partly, yes. I think… I think we both are." She rubbed a hand along her temple. "Chakotay warned me about this."

"About what?"

"Tempers. Yours. Mine. Ours."

The muscles in B'Elanna's shoulders slowly unwound, enough so she could lean against the bulkhead. "He's pretty smart," she said, and conceded a small smile. "You should keep him around."

Janeway let her head roll back against the seat. "To be honest? He pisses me off, being right all the time."

B'Elanna shot her a look. "I thought the captain was always right."

"Exactly," Kathryn replied, choosing to ignore the engineer's bitterness. "So you can imagine how frustrating he must be."

"Ha. You think you have it bad. You should have served under him."

"I think we both know how that would have turned out," the Captain grunted, eyebrows arching severely. A smile flitted across B'Elanna's lips.

The _Flyer_ fell silent.

"Captain… as much as I'd like to apologize and make up, I don't think I can. Not on this matter."

"Neither can I," Janeway murmured, staring at the bulkhead.

B'Elanna gazed at her steadily. "Am I really worth that much to you? That you would sacrifice millions of lives just to keep me in yours?"

Kathryn's eyes flicked to the younger woman's. "Honestly?"

"Honestly."

"I don't have an answer for you. I'd like to think that I could find an easy way out – save both you and the innocents. But life isn't like that. It never will be. Part of being a captain is making tough choices; I made one of those last week, and it set a lot of ripples in motion. Ripples that bothered people. But… I don't regret the decision I made. It was… easy." She fell silent, seeming to remember something. "Captain Spock once said that 'the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one.' "

"But it's never that simple for us emotional beings, is it?" B'Elanna offered, hands slipping to her sides.

"No. No it's not," Janeway agreed.

"Captain…"

"Yes?"

"I'm… sorry."

Janeway smiled softly. "So am I, B'Elanna. So am I."

They let the moment settle, apology and anger sharpening, mellowing, blending into the recycled air. This was something neither of them allowed in their lives – this stillness, silence, companionship. Too often it was full of clipping boots and bleeping consoles, gripped armrests or whip-sharp voices. But this, the admittance of wrong, the feather of agreement trailing along their minds… this they could not deny.

That is, until they remembered the third member of their party.

"TOM!"


	3. End

"B'Elanna! B'Elanna – wait!" Tom called. Ahead of him, B'Elanna slammed out of the shuttebay and into the corridor, toolkit swinging and hair flying.

"I can't believe you did that!" She yelled over her shoulder, and stormed on. Tom sighed and started after her.

"Look, I understand why you're mad at me – " B'Elanna interrupted him with a string of Klingon expletives, each nastier than the last. Tom stopped, eyebrows pushing into his hairline, then shook his head and resumed his pursuit. "Look, B'Elanna, it had to be done. You weren't going to talk to her unless you were forced to, so we decided to – hey! B'Elanna!"

He followed her to her quarters, offering apologies to crewmen, colliding with corners, and generally discovering that he really didn't like chasing a half-Klingon through the bowels of a ship she knew better than he did. It just wasn't fair.

Just ahead of him, B'Elanna slapped out the code to her doorkey, shouldering her way through the crack when it didn't open fast enough.

"B'Elanna – B'Elanna!" he fought the closing door and won. She slung her toolkit onto the couch and stood facing away from him, shoulders tensed and fists at her sides. "Bee – "

"Don't, Tom! I don't want to hear it."

"But B'Ela – "

"I said don't!" She swung around.

"Okay. I won't." He stood watching her. After a moment, she turned back to the couch and slumped, as if spent of everything, even anger.

"I'm sick of everyone trying to run my life, Tom," she said finally. "I just want to be good enough the way I am. The way I want to be." A pause. "The way I have to be."

He took a step toward her. "I'm sorry if we forced her on you, Bee. Sometimes guys don't have the best of ideas." He half-smiled, then sobered. "But we saved your life because we love you. _I _love you. And I'm not willing to let you die just because the guy who operated on you deserves to die for what he's done."

She turned glittering eyes on him. "I wanted to die, Tom. I did."

His mouth dropped, brow furrowing as he stared at her. "What?"

"I wanted to die. I couldn't… couldn't keep on living. Not after the Maquis, not after you found out, not after Moset and that stupid alien bug thing." She paused and looked at him, tears tracking her skin. "Do you understand, Tom? I _wanted_ to die. Everyone else died. So why not me?"

"Because I need you," he answered, cupping her cheek. She dropped her eyes and swallowed.

"Tom?"

"Yeah?"

"What if I… what if I can't stop?"

He smiled faintly, wiping the tears from her cheeks and pulling her into him. She rested her head on his shoulder, arms twined around his waist. "That's where we come in," he whispered into her hair.

And sometimes, that's all it took.

. . .

"So how'd it go?" Chakotay asked upon entering her ready room three hours later. The smirk on his lips made her want to smack him, but that was hardly befitting of a captain. Even if she was chafing beneath those twinkling eyes.

She looked up calmly. "Fine, thank you. The anomaly was fascinating."

"Fascinating, huh? Was that before or after you realized it was a ruse?"

"Oh, I think you know." Janeway busied herself with Harry's operations report.

"Care for a cup of coffee?" he asked.

"I didn't invite you in here for a little chat, Commander," she said, standing. "I want to know why you went behind my back like that. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't throw you in the brig for undermining my authority."

He glanced down with a smile. "On the contrary, Captain. I don't think I undermined you at all."

She lifted her chin. "Oh?"

"A very wise man once told me that one whose authority is never questioned is in danger of two things: tyranny, and mutiny."

Janeway folded her arms. "And just who is this very wise man?"

"My grandfather." A pause. "He also told me that the only way to strengthen your guard against these things is to submit yourself to a questioning of your peers. Since there aren't exactly any other Starfleet captains around here, I thought B'Elanna would do just as well."

"And Tom?" She clasped her hands.

Chakotay grinned. "The one who hatched the anomalous asteroid plan. I was going to be much less subtle."

She raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"I don't know how, but he got wind of it and found me tinkering around with the _Flyer_'s controls. He nearly exploded when he realized what I was doing, then calmed down long enough to tell me about the codes."

"The codes which I've now ordered him to revoke."

He shook his head. "I take it you're on speaking terms with our chief engineer again?"

"You could say that."

He watched her a moment. "She asked you those hard questions."

"Yes."

"And you didn't like it."

She remained silent.

"Kathryn, I'm not going to pretend that life is easy, because it's not. And sometimes I think the pressure of being the captain can become a crutch for us – something we use to remind those beneath us that we have it harder than they do. After all, they just follow orders. We have to invent them."

"We."

"Yes. In this case, we. I've been a captain before; I've stood in your shoes; I've liked it a little too much. After a while, it gets easy to skirt around the real issues of life. To treat others as if they're nothing more than a rank, as if they don't have feelings and conflicts and convictions just like we do. And that's dangerous."

She held silent for a long moment, just staring at him, and he met it unflinchingly.

"I'm still the Captain," she said at last.

And she would be.

Always.

_Finis_

**Farewell, my friends:** I do believe that this will be my final _Voyager_ story for quite some time, if not forever. Thank you ALL for the reads, the reviews, the favorites, the messages, and, most of all, for the journey. Just because my stories have quieted doesn't mean my enthusiasm for talking Trek has - I hope you'll continue to read, review, and message just like old times. And someday I hope you'll consider picking up my newest favorite, JJ Abrams' heart-stopping _Alias_. It's truly worth the ride, every second of it._  
_


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